Wolfe, Gene - The Arimaspian Legacy

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The Arimaspian Legacy

Gene Wolfe

It is among the Issedonians themselves that the strange tales of the distant north

originate -- tales of the one-eyed men and the griffins that guard gold; and the

Scythians have passed them on to the rest of us...

-- Herodotus,

The Histories

Each year at about this time, I make the same resolution; but for you to understand, I

must first tell you of my old friend David. I intend to employ that first name since it

was his -- there are so many Davids that no ill-intentioned person is apt to guess the

David I mean. Certain members of David's family are yet living however (an uncle,

an aunt, and several cousins, I believe), so I shall assign to him the surname of

Arimaspian

Its signification will become clear to you.

David and I were (as I have said) old friends. I might as truthfully have called us

boyhood friends, even though I lived on the southern edge of the city and David on

the eastern. We were of an age. We were alike in being bookish but unstudious, and

in being without sister or brother. We met at a chess club for boys in the YMCA, and

though we both soon abandoned chess, we never quite abandoned each other.

The truth is that each of us found the other useful. It was the custom in those days to

require a boy to name his best friend. And then, cruelly, to investigate the matter

with the boy named. Thus I specified David Arimaspian, and he me; and neither of

us lost face.

In part in support of our own testimony, we met regularly once or twice a month to

talk, to trifle with chess or Monopoly or some other game, and to read in each other's

company. For the city was not so large in those days that a determined boy could not

ride his bicycle twice across it in a single evening, and the distance between our

homes was considerably less than the full diameter. Soon, indeed, I boasted a motor

scooter in place of my bike; and in what now seems a short time, we both owned

cars.

I said we met to talk, but I might better have said we met to boast. David began it, I

believe. He was always exceedingly proud of whatever he possessed: his geese were

every one a swan, as the saying goes. You will protest that if his boasting were

objectionable to me, I might have mentioned the matter to him or even ceased to visit

him; and you will be correct. The fact was that I did not find it objectionable, though

possibly I should have. His latest possessions were often of interest -- for he was

something of a collector even then -- and he took so much innocent pleasure in

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Wolfe, Gene - The Arimaspian Legacy

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